


We Shall Be Monsters

by Killtheselights



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark Force Ghosts, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Force Ghosts, Force trials, Ghost planet, Ghosts, Master Luke Skywalker, Padawan Ben, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, TIE Silencer, canonverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 03:36:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16467920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killtheselights/pseuds/Killtheselights
Summary: “The things you see there are not exactly real.”Rey's just trying to follow Master Luke's latest cryptic lesson. She didn't expect for Kylo Ren to land on the same strange world in a remote corner of the galaxy. However, on this planet, nothing is what is appears to be, and the two must band together to overcome the visions surrounding them, if they can bear to face the Darkness within...





	We Shall Be Monsters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avidvampirehunter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avidvampirehunter/gifts).



> My prompt: Canonverse fic where Ben and Rey are trapped together on a planet haunted by the (invented) Dark Side version of Force Ghosts. They undergo a trial where Ben and Rey are forced to confront their feelings. Maybe in a dirty way?
> 
> (There was more to the prompt, but you'll have to wait and see what else I was challenged to create.)
> 
> This is a challenge, but I love everything about it. Hence it's taking so long: I want to get it just right.
> 
> For now, enjoy!

_"W e shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.”  
_ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, _Frankenstein_

 

Luke was lost in memories and reveries when he strolled into the cockpit of the small spacecraft; in fact, he was so awash in his thoughts that he was almost shocked when he glanced at his pilot.

Certainly, there was nothing wrong with the pilot, but he did not look how Luke had expected him to. Well, not anymore, anyway.

In his mind, his nephew was frozen in time. He’d always be that black-haired toddler with the big dark eyes—his sister’s, of course—and a smile always plastered on his face.

The one who’d shriek “Unca Looo!” and come waddling towards him, arms outstretched to be held.

It was how he had appeared in Luke’s last meditation.

The young man sitting behind the control still had his sister’s eyes and his brother-in-law’s constantly mussed hair but was now considerably older. Something Luke had forgotten in his meditation. A vision of happier times. A warning, perhaps. He hated the foreboding that seemed to swirl around the boy, or at least his impression of him.

“We should be arriving soon,” Ben murmured. He tore his eyes away from the small purple planet growing larger in the viewport and looked over at where his uncle hovered by the co-pilot’s panel.

“Everything alright, Master?”

Luke had flown across the galaxy to meet the child the day he was born, and every time he’d finish a journey to explore the Jedi legacy, he loved nothing more than going back to Chandrilla to see his family, his sister and brother-in-law, and his ever-growing nephew. And had he ever grown. Now, he was a Padawan, one of the oldest in the school. Ben was lanky and tall and his features hadn’t quite nestled themselves properly into his adult face yet. There were parts of Leia in him, delicate and beautiful. There were parts of Han in him, too, but he had to grow into those. He had time.

Luke shook his head.

“Sorry, kid,” he sighed, taking a seat next to the boy. “My head’s full of ghosts right now.”

Ben nodded stiffly, eyes darting back to the viewport.

“We’re almost to the destination,” he said quietly, his posture and tone indicating that he was trying far too hard to be nonchalant.

That’s a Han move, Luke reflected.

“I didn’t see the name of this planet on any of our maps,” Ben continued.

“Not sure it has one, if I’m being honest with you,” Luke said.

There was an agonizing beat of silence. Ben had more questions, Luke could tell, but he didn’t want to be reprimanded for asking them.

“It’s an old Jedi haunt,” Luke admitted, rewarding the boy for his patience. “Supposed to be full of Force energy. Powerful Force energy.”

He bobbed his head at the younger man. “Hence, you’re flying me. Not sure I’ll have the energy to make it out on my own.”

The silence returned for an encore. It was longer than before.

“You can ask your question, Ben.”

Ben’s shoulders slackened slightly, and his grip loosened on the controls as the ship entered the purple planet’s outer atmosphere. The tips of his ears, peeking out from his shaggy hair, pinked.

“Am I going with you?”

“Sorry, kid. Not this time. I brought you to pilot, not to participate.”

Ben’s head jerked sharply to face him.

“Why not?” he snapped.

There is was again, just beneath the surface. Luke knew better than to outright lie to the kid, but he wasn’t sure he could tell him the truth.

“It’s not safe, Ben. You’re not ready.”

“Sure I am,” he protested.

“Not yet you’re not.” Luke couldn’t help it. He felt his voice raise in a parent-like manner. _Force, when did I become uncle Owen?_

“You told me I was powerful. You know I can do this. Let me go with you.” Ben’s tone was pleading, but the knuckles on his large hands were turning white from his vice grip on the steering controls.

“I believe you,” Luke said cautiously, managing the frustration that usually cropped up whenever Ben would tweak his nerves like this. “But what have I said about you trusting my judgment? I don’t know what’s out there. I can’t just throw you out into the wilds on your own without knowing what you’re facing. What either of us--”

“Why not?” Ben snapped again. “I won’t be own my own. And besides, you were out there on your own when you were what? Eighteen? Not much older than me.”

“I was nineteen, and it isn’t about age, it’s about experience.” Luke was embarrassed to realize he was growing more flippant and angrier with each exchange. “I don’t want to set you loose without _either of us_ knowing what’s out there. And I’m not keen on the idea of having to explain any major wounds to your mother and father. Your dad would have my hide.”

Ben barked a bitter laugh, beginning his descent into the unknown planet’s atmosphere. “What? So are you not teaching me things because you’re scared of my _parents_?”

Ben’s rage was now boiling over, a potent stinging sensation whirling in the Force around them. “Am I the only one lucky enough to get this special treatment at the academy? Or are other Padawans pulled from opportunities because you’re scared of their mom and-- ”

“Enough.”

Ben couldn’t stop. His fists clamped tighter around the steering controls. “It’s great to be the famous Master Skywalker’s nephew! He’ll tell you about your power and send you to school and then leave you in the ship because he’s too bantha-shit to actually let you out into the—“

“ _I said enough, Ben!_ ” Luke rose suddenly, and Ben flinched. Luke’s command seemed to silence everything in the ship except the engine. Luke’s command seemed to silence everything in the ship except the engine.“I said no, and that should be enough!”

Ben relaxed his haughty posture, and slumped forward chastened. Luke continued.

“You’re still a student, so I’m not taking you into unknown territories without being completely confident that both of us will walk out safe and alive. And as my student, and I will not take this sort of disrespect from you again. Now pay attention to the landing coordinates and set this thing down.”

Of course, Luke didn’t want to admit that the true reason he was afraid to take Ben was exactly because of the behavior he witnessed; Ben’s darkness was leaking out more and more, and this planet was volatile. He couldn’t expose his already temperamental nephew to these unpredictable conditions.

He just wanted to protect the kid, even though he was becoming too old and too large to protect.

The ship settled down sharply, perhaps a bit brusquer than Ben’s usual landings, and the gangplank released with a hiss. Luke grabbed his pack and began to walk away, out into the dusky evening but he turned back around.

“I’ll be back by the morning. If there’s an emergency, you can buzz my comm, but otherwise, just mind the ship. You know the drill.”

He paused, regarding the back of Ben’s shaggy, dark head. Luke didn’t know what to make of the strange sliver of Darkness he had felt growing in the young man, but from this angle, he caught a glimpse of his dear friend Han, and he remembered that little boy, his nephew. They were one and the same, somehow.

“Take care of yourself, kid.” Luke’s voice was no longer that of a Jedi Master, but a concerned uncle. Ben finally turned around in his seat, his padawan braid swaying, hands resting on his knees, twitching with agitation. He could see the resentment behind Ben’s eyes crack just slightly.

“One day I’ll bring you back here, Ben,” Luke continued. “Everything in its time. Nothing before you’re ready.”

Ben regarded him for a moment, then he saw a flash of something in his eyes. That coldness again.  
“Promises, promises,” Ben growled, before turning back to the console.

Luke watched him for a moment before turning back to the planet and striding away.

In a moment the gangplank was retracted, and the landing lights snapped off, plunging Luke into the darkness of a strange world.

 

  
Rey exhaled as the ship touched down on the shores of a dark silver lake at the edge of a thick forest. This was like no forest she had seen before; rather than the lively green she had grown to love, the trees were a sinister plum color with raven-black leaves.

“Master Luke better have been right,” Rey growled to the antique silver astromech. It responded with a series of confident beeps.

“Well, yes, Artoo. I’m sure he wouldn’t lead me directly into a sarlaac pit, but there’s something…”

She scanned the haunting grey lake. Rolling bubbles appeared near the surface, then vanished. She shivered.

“ _Unsettling_ about this place.”

The last she had spoken to the spectral form of Luke Skywalker, he had reassured her that a visit to this planet would be an illuminating part of her continuing Force education.  However, she expected that a visit to the nameless world would feature guided instruction by the Jedi Master; she was surprised to learn that would not be the case.

“What do you mean you can’t join me?” she’d asked.

“It’s not safe for you to see me,” he’d said. She hated how cryptic Luke had been in life; he was infinitely worse in death. She sighed, taking the bait.

“Why not?”

He chuckled. She hated that ghost.

“The Force is very potent on that planet, but it is…” He stroked his neat beard, unlike the one he’d had when she’d known him in life. “...Radically out of balance,” he finished.

“So...what? I’m going to sneeze and Force lightning is going to shoot out of my fingers?”

“What? No,” Luke said, clearly just as frustrated with Rey as she was with him. “The things you see there are not exactly real.”

Rey paused.

“How can things be ‘not exactly real?’” she asked. “Are they fake or not? You usually have to be one or the other.”

“They’re real in that they are made of the Force. You aren’t imagining what you are seeing.”

Luke sounded smug to Rey as he continued.

“This planet contains very powerful Force impressions. Things that you have encountered in the Force...they become...tangible. Or at least they might seem that way. Rey, I cannot join you on that planet.”

“Okay...well, why are you sending me if you’re not there to guide me?”

“There are some lessons you need to learn, ones that I cannot directly teach. This will be a hard way of learning, but you will emerge stronger for it. I can certainly appear to you on that planet, but it would be very dangerous.” Despite their testy exchanges, Rey found Luke’s sudden severity chilling. “I need you to know that I will never harm you. If you see me in that forest...you have to know that it’s not me, alright?”

Luke drifted closer to Rey. “Know that whatever you might see there, it can’t hurt you. But I am keeping off that rock. If you see anything that looks like me, remember it is only an impression in the Force.”

He considered something for a moment, something unfathomable to Rey.

“And you might want to run, just in case.”

Luke’s warnings rang in Rey’s head as she shouldered her pack, filled with enough food to last her through several nights and a bed roll, just in case. She climbed out of the small craft and jumped to the ground, landing nimbly on her feet. His instructions had been specific, but strange: land by the lake. Follow the stream that runs backwards. Get to the grove. That will be the safest journey. Meditate under the white tree through the night. Return after dawn.

Nothing he said in particular seemed instructive, but she did feel that the Force was thrumming like a taut wire.

“Watch the ship, Artoo,” she said, drawing a tarp over the ship to camouflage it. Just in case. “I’ll be back before you know it.” The droid whisted what seemed like half-hearted encouragement as Rey gave the tarp one final, sure tug, then wandered away, taking in her surroundings.

The nearest star was beginning to set over the treetops, casting the already strange planet into an eerie lavender twilight. Screwing up her courage, Rey took a deep breath. Unlike the fresh earthiness of other forest worlds, this one seemed to be permeated by a bitterness, a sour smell of berries rotting in the sun. Of flowers in decay.

She began to stroll toward the lake when she heard a strange rustling behind her. She whipped around, looking intently at the purple trees on the other side of her small X-Wing. The ink black leaves all seemed so still, but she had thought she heard...

She was certain it was nothing. But then she felt something in the Force, as if the tight wire she had felt before snapped in half. She heard a familiar shriek and turned back to look at the hazy sky.

_Oh no…_

The angular black ship swooping into the atmosphere was ominous. Rey could not fathom how Kylo Ren had tracked her out here. This place was barely on her radar. It didn’t even have a name…

If Luke hadn’t already been dead, she would have throttled him.

_Why would Luke send him here?_

She didn’t have time to think. The Silencer was coming closer.

Then behind her was that rustling again. She whipped her head from the TIE Fighter to the woods, drawing her blaster from her hip as she pivoted towards the trees. She thought she saw something strange and bright out in the clearing with her before it vanished into the woods.

It seemed like a young man, bolting away from her.

She knew she stood no chance against Kylo while she was out in the open like this.

No more time to think.

Rey ran as fast as she could into the woods, not caring about the stream Luke had instructed her to follow. She just had to get out of sight.


End file.
